Smoke and Denial
by liz6jan
Summary: When you spend years looking at the world through tinted shades, there's a reason for that, and the one person who had brought him out from behind them had now produced every…single…feeling that his entire life had been in opposition of. Takes place at the end of season 7, as Hyde experiences a new perspective following Jackie's ultimatum and leaving for Chicago. J/H complete.


This is super weird for me, because the last time I wrote a fanfiction story was back in high school a decade ago and I haven't really written since, but this idea would not leave me alone. That 70s Show has become one of my favorites over the last year or so, thanks to Netflix, and I ended up loving Jackie and Hyde, somehow eventually was reminded of fanfiction and found my way back here. Based on all these great stories, I'm glad I am not the only one who loved them and pictured things ending very differently.

Hope you enjoy.

* * *

The rage started in the pit of his stomach, a sickening burn, worse than any ever inflicted on him by the bumbling jackass who darkened the doorway behind him. Every Goddamn bit of optimism and freedom from fear and the previous anxieties over what he had finally come all this way to do, dissipated in an instant. Steven Hyde may have mastered the art of zen, or simply of maintaining an unhealthy but effective emptiness where feelings were supposed to be, particularly towards those who let him down…but as he stared into Michael Kelso's stupid ass face, and registered the lone towel wrapped around his waist, years of habit failed Hyde completely.

"You're dead."

It was the furthest from apathy that it could possibly be. He had never meant anything more. The dumbass turned to run, and all Hyde could get a grip on was the goddamn towel, although the force with which he gripped it and yanked it would have produced an injury to which even Hyde wouldn't have known the extent until it was done. He didn't get that far, as Kelso was somehow able to elude him and disappear into the shadows. It all happened in an instant – Hyde's grip, a lunge towards Kelso fueled by instinctual desire to actually kill him, and then a heaviness in his feet at the realization that another individual was just as involved in this parody, and somehow, instead of channeling his rage into beating his ex-friend's pitiful ass into the ground, it kept him stuck there because he had yet to face her.

In slow and mechanical motion, he turned back towards her. The combination of her beauty and the sickness he felt inside was more gut-wrenching than he'd ever thought himself capable of feeling.

He hated himself, he hated that the sadness in her eyes was still breaking him, he hated every moment she had ever spent carving out a place in his apathetic heart, and he despised that it had brought him here with the intent that now made him feel like a miserable fool. When you spend years looking at the world through tinted shades, there's a reason for that, and the one person who had brought him out from behind them had now produced every…single…goddamn…feeling that his entire life had been in opposition of. He had hated very few things more than that fact.

She couldn't get a word out before he did.

"Screw you, Jackie."

Those words seethed now in the same way that they would ache later. He tore off faster than she could follow him, although some ramblings could be heard in the dark behind him as he went. He heard his name called in her aching voice and it sent a new wave of sickness through him. God damn, every fiber in his body was enraged at the fact that he actually felt HER pain, and his limbs were heavy with the regret of every stride he took away from her. In a blur of whatever the Goddamn hell kind of feelings were crushing him, he somehow found his car in its spot, and his hands didn't feel like his own as he tore the door open.

Almost as if by forces outside of himself, the ring box was wrenched from the pocket of his jacket and thrown so hard against the dashboard that it popped open and fell into darkness.

The fury was in total control as he punched the steering wheel repeatedly, which was not a bit gratifying as the rage kept coming and coming. He didn't even feel the pain. He shook and his breath rattled. His mind wasn't focused on the fact that Jackie, at least to his knowledge, had not found him yet. He somehow came into a moment of clarity where he knew to prove his disgust for her by throwing the car in drive and peeling off, not giving her a chance to. He thought about finding Kelso and running right over the top of his sorry ass. Everything burned...even a lump in his throat. Terrifying.

The next hours, days, however long, played out like an odd blur that would have to be re-explained to him later. For reasons he couldn't yet realize, life came at him like an odd jumble happening TO him, rather than him being an active participant.

He ended up in Vegas; he ended up back in Point Place before he could manage to die out there; he saw Jackie again and hated her and loved her and conveyed this by acting mostly like he hated her; a stripper from Vegas showed up and told him they had gotten married. This was horrifying and perfect. It broke Jackie's heart. He let it.

Forman was gone, Donna dated someone else, Kelso had his kid in Chicago, and Hyde was in and out of the record store. Must have been a blur of smoke and denial.

He forced himself into this stripper's world as much as she forced herself into his. She was like the blur of a nondescript woman, hot but empty, the lost memory of a girl you just hooked up with one night. She was revenge that had been handed to him on a platter.

He kept seeing Jackie. The ache was always there. She barely had a chance to "explain" before everything went even further to hell, so Hyde took advantage of that.

The "marriage" was eventually found to be illegitimate. This was another freakish part of Hyde's new normal and also a huge relief to him. He knew why it was, but didn't want to acknowledge it.

Red and Kitty planned to move away. There was a party, Kelso's inexplicable botched proposal to Jackie, and all the more reason for Hyde to throw his cold indifference in her face.

Eventually, there was Fez.

Fez? Well, why the hell not? This was all making it easier to not care ever again.

Then, he was seeing the girl he loved sit there nose to nose and gushing on the stairs of the Forman house with the friend he frankly used to suspect would never even marry a woman, while everyone, himself included, carried on like this was normal. His internal disgust gripped his insides as he acknowledged the ache again, and likened it to what she must have felt when the man she had loved ended up "married" to someone else. Is this what normal people felt like? Is this what Jackie felt except tenfold, all the damn time? Again...disgust at how much he cared, inevitably phasing into pain over _how much he loved her_ damnit and it pissed him off so bad. What the hell was happening?

It had actually, fully returned, and with a vengeance, that pain that he had kept simmering the entire time. His shades stayed on.

Forman was back. Hyde saw Donna cozy up to him again, the two of them stealing glances as if they would never be able to stop loving each other. Something about this settled deeply in him, like at least one Goddamn thing was happening the way it should.

The haze of circle time centered his soul, if only for a moment.

He gazed through the cloud at his dimly lit friends, and he felt it.

He felt the jolt through his body as the sharp inhale of breath widened his eyes.

And the smoke had cleared.

He was still for a second, and time hung suspended as he blinked furiously. The realization took a few seconds, his breath still rattled, and his body felt like Mrs. Forman's Jell-O mold.

 _Damnit... what the hell?_

With increasing clarity he pushed himself up on one elbow, on his cot, in his quiet and empty basement bedroom at the Forman house.

It was sometime later than he had planned on sleeping, and his memory came back to him in pieces. He sat up all the way, let his feet hit the floor, and rubbed his eyes as different memories pieced together...

And he remembered what he had done the day before, and he recalled the sickening "memories" of what had just played out in his mind... throughout the night… after the beers and the joint had pushed him off to sleep.

For a solid few minutes, he couldn't do anything but sit there and think about it. When he glanced down at his hands, they were almost actually shaking. Damn.

Then he slowly rose from his bed and made his way over to the nearby dresser, where his hand hesitated a moment on the handle of the top drawer, before pulling it slowly open.

There, among his belongings including his signature sunglasses, sat the ring box, just where he had left it the night before…after bringing it home from the jeweler.

The visual confirmation made it real all over again, even more real now, especially after last night and the multiple beers he had slammed and the joint he had finally smoked to top it off as his mind reeled at the realization that he had just brought home an engagement ring and was supposedly going to drive to Chicago and propose to the crazy, beautiful, obnoxious, pain in his ass, love of his life…the next day.

Well, it _was_ the next day.

He "remembered" the rage in his body but mostly the hollow feeling of her permanent absence, and as real as it had seemed was as quickly as it all went up in smoke. And in some bizarre way, the rotten, vivid, twisted dreams that had haunted his fitful sleep all night long were his final confirmation.

 _It's over anyway, man._

 _What the hell else is there besides a damn future with this girl?_

 _Take the damn ring and go…_

He picked up the box, opened it gingerly, and let out the breath he didn't even realize he had been holding.

He pictured her again with someone else, anyone else but him. (Fez's crazy ass? Get out of here.) In fact, he pictured her alone in Chicago, period. Alone and assuming her dreams of even a distant permanent future with the guy she loved were shot to hell. The second he felt that vivid ache in his chest, he knew.

He thought back to purchasing the ring on a wave of adrenaline and beer, a few towns over so the word wouldn't spread, as he pictured the real Jackie in his mind… head against his chest, her love for him that would not quit, the adoring gaze no matter what crap he was talking about, always saw him as the very best version of himself, his literal biggest cheerleader, only wanting the assurance that he would stay in her life. Somehow the only Goddamn person he had ever needed. Right this very moment, he wished she were here to smother him. She was his new normal and it wasn't going to be okay if that was gone. He would be damned if he would let any of the atrocities that had haunted his sleep all night long to ever actually materialize. A nightmare was the only thing it deserved to be, and he would rather be staring down a future with Jackie Burkhart than staring down the person who grabbed her out from under him.

He grabbed his boots, his jacket, and his shades. On his way through the basement, he noticed the stupid helmet sitting there and he actually smiled.

 _I'm gonna be Mr. Jackie Hyde._

 _And maybe beat Kelso's ass for good measure._


End file.
